Here’s who No. 1-seed Seahawks could face in NFL playoffs as dust settles

SEATTLE – Saturday settled one big piece of the NFC playoff puzzle when the Seahawks beat the 49ers 13-3 to take the NFC West title and the top seed in the conference.

Sunday settled the rest.

The results of the final day of the regular season finalized the NFC playoff ladder and clarified who the Seahawks might play in the divisional round two weeks from now.

The wild -card round next week will feature three games:

• No. 5 seed Los Angeles Rams at No. 4 seed Carolina (Saturday, 1:30 p.m., FOX).

• No. 7 seed Green Bay at No. 2 seed Chicago (Saturday, 5 p.m., Prime Video).

• No. 6 seed San Francisco at No. 3 seed Philadelphia (Sunday, 1:30 p.m., FOX).

Carolina qualified for the playoffs Sunday as the winner of the NFC South with an 8-9 record when Atlanta beat New Orleans to force a three-way tie with the Panthers and Tampa Bay.

The Panthers got the bid due to tiebreakers, eliminating a Bucs team that had led the division much of the season and is one of only three teams to beat the Seahawks this year.

The Rams clinched the five-seed with a 37-20 win over Arizona which made the 49ers the six-seed.

By virtue of getting the No. 1 seed the Seahawks will get a bye in the wild-card round and will play the lowest remaining seed in the divisional round Jan. 17-18.

That means the Seahawks could host any of the bottom four seeds – Carolina, L.A., San Francisco or Green Bay – in the divisional round game.

If Seattle wins that game then it will host the NFC championship on Jan. 25.

Win that game and then Seattle would have the shortest trip it can take to any NFL city to Santa Clara, California, for the Super Bowl on Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium.

It hardly needs stating that Seattle has plenty of familiarity with each of the four teams it could face in the divisional round.

The Seahawks finished the season playing, and beating, the Rams, Panthers and 49ers, and played L.A. and San Francisco twice this season, splitting the series with each.

The Seahawks also played Green Bay in the preseason, and more importantly held a joint practice with the Packers two days before that contest in which starters on each team got substantial work.

Which team might Seattle most like to play?

Let’s rate the possible opponents in order of most favorable matchup to most dangerous:

Carolina

We just saw the Seahawks completely manhandle the Panthers offense in a 27-10 win.

And while Carolina would undoubtedly make adjustments to try to get the passing game going better than it did last week in Charlotte – when the home team didn’t have a pass play of longer than 8 yards all game – few would expect things would go a lot different the second time around.

The Panthers had one of the more unusual paths to a playoff spot, losing their last two games and three of the last four to finish 8-9 and become just the fifth team with a losing record to make the playoffs in a nonstrike year.

Of course, Seahawks fans don’t need reminding that Seattle’s 2010 squad was one of the others in that group. And that team’s win over New Orleans proves that anything is possible.

But the Panthers would first have to pull a major upset against the Rams before they’d get to Seattle. Opening lines Sunday listed the Rams as 10-point favorites.

The playoffs are motivation enough but L.A. also will have fresh memories of dropping a 31-28 decision in Charlotte on Nov. 30 – due in part to one of Matthew Stafford’s worst games of the season – a loss that proved vital in Seattle’s rally to win the NFC West.

Green Bay

The Packers rested a lot of players in Sunday’s 16-3 loss to the Vikings since Green Bay was locked into seventh seed and had nothing to play for.

The Packers were a candidate for the No. 1 seed when they started 9-3-1. But a season-ending injury to star pass-rusher Micah Parsons and a concussion that held quarterback Jordan Love out for a game contributed to a four-game losing streak and a 9-7-1 record entering the postseason.

The Packers, though, beat the Bears 28-21 on Dec. 7 – Green Bay’s last win of the regular season – then dropped a 22-16 overtime decision on Dec. 20 in a game the Packers led 16-6 with 5:03 left.

And the oddsmakers are expecting a close game – Chicago is just a one-point favorite in early lines.

If Green Bay does beat the Bears, then they are immediately locked in as Seattle’s opponent.

San Francisco

It will be interesting to see how the 49ers respond from Saturday’s loss to Seattle that tied the fewest points the team has scored under Kyle Shanahan and the fewest yards gained (147).

Losing that game – which would have given them home-field advantage for as long as they’d lasted in the playoffs – means the 49ers now have to travel to play the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles on the road.

The Eagles lost to Washington 24-17 Sunday in a game in which Philly decided to rest many starters instead of trying to get the two-seed, which they would have gotten since the Bears lost to Detroit.

The Eagles, though, had won three in a row and feature one of the better defenses in the NFL and obviously lots of big-game experience and were installed as 3.5-point favorites against San Francisco.

L.A. Rams

As noted, the Rams secured the five-seed Sunday and are heavy favorites to win at Charlotte.

If the Rams, Eagles and Bears all win next weekend – as they are favored to do – then it will be L.A. coming to Seattle for the divisional round and a quick rematch of what ranks as one of the NFL’s games of the year, Seattle’s 38-37 overtime win on Dec. 18.

That game reinforced that L.A. and Seattle may be the two best teams in the NFC and are likely standing in each other’s way to get to the Super Bowl.

But the Seahawks might hope to at least delay a rematch that feels inevitable until the conference title game instead of getting L.A. right off the bat.